Anyone else concerned about the trajectory of content?

I've been a MCOC player since it's launch and I'm growing concerned about the trajectory of content in the game. While Im aware that this form is populated by a large amount of thronebreakers, as apparent by any Cavalier getting disliked into oblivion, the upward trajectory of content is alienating a large portion of users. While t5cc has been around for a while now, Kabam is still treating it like a golden comity.

And before you mention SOP, which was a good source, it still took months to get the rewards. This leaves Cavs and early Thronebreakers still slowly acquiring tier5cc; however, the difficulty of content just keeps rising. What are the chances that an early Thronebreaker, who probably only has 2 or 3 rank 3's, will have the correct champs to complete a difficult piece of content like the Shang Chi event?

This could easily be rectified by simply increasing the supply of t5cc, such as doubling the t5cc rewards form the event quest, yet Kabam seems intent on limiting the supply of it while still continuing to increase the difficulty. While I'm sure Thronebreakers are the primary source of revenue for Kabam, this practice just seems to alienate such a large percentage of the player base. I'd say less than 15 percent of daily players will complete the Shang Chi quest, yet Kabam won't offer an alternative for lower players.

All in all, I'm just concerned that Kabam's process of releasing content is gonna drive players away, which will be bad for the contest in the coming years.

Comments

Colinwhitworth69

The permanent content is there for progression. V8 and 7.3 coming soon.

The sweaties have been begging for some super hard content, and now they've gotten it.

No issue with the direction of the game on my end.

JohnLocke117

Although I'm not the happiest player right now, I'll have to slightly disagree here. T5CC is still supposed to be a rare resource. Also, you still cannot ignore SOP rewards. Yes it was nasty at times but still quite good effort to reward ratio.
As for the Shang-chi challenge, close encounters sucks but yeah it's supposed to be hard. I'm gonna still try to do it but yeah they're not the most game breaking rewards, you can skip this event if you like.

The_Sentry06

I mean if we are ignoring the biggest source of T5CC that is relatively easily achievable, obviously there will be a drought of t5cc.

BitterSteel

Firstly, I don’t think the forum is populated by TB, and they don’t hate Cavs full stop. There just isn’t a good opinion on Cav players who simply complain about RNG holding them back from getting TB when it’s simply not true anymore. It’s not the lack of T5cc that gets judged, it’s the complaining attitude.

Secondly, I used one R3 champ in my Shang Chi challenge run. Nick, the rest was gambit as a horseman as a rank 2. I brought I-hulk and doom both rank 3s and used them for one fight each, realising they weren’t good. Rank 3s help, but aren’t necessary. There’s only a 30% stat increase, can be accomplished by boosts.

Plus, you say there’s no alternative for lower players, what is chapter 1 to you? Is that aimed at TB players?

Every new piece of content adds more T5cc, so I don’t think you mean they limit the supply, just that it’s not increasing at a rate that you’re happy with. To be honest though, I would be very surprised if SoP hasn’t “opened the floodgates” as it were, on t5cc. Not that we’re gonna be seeing it left right and centre, but I really think as a whole T5cc is about to become more accessible.

I may be wrong, but after an event that allowed Cavs to select 75% of a full cat, I do think there will be an increase over time. Hopefully that will address your concerns.

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ItsDamien

Alternate Title: Why is progression harder in a progression based game?

Demonzfyre

Weird... Don't see you mention playing map 7x5 with epic mods. That's bare minimum 40% a month. 🤷

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The_Sentry06

Rank 3's aren't needed anywhere though. Not in act 7 nor the Shang-Chi challenge.

BitterSteel

How many Cavs have the option to play that?

OGAvenger

Not at all concerned. We went like a year and a half without any end game content and Kabam felt the pressure to finally create some difficult content again.

It was a necessary pressure though and I believe they found a good way to make it more difficult for TB’s while still keeping it doable for Cavs (objectives). Even if there is still some perfecting they need to do with those objectives.

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Hoodie25

I think that there’s a major misconception here, and that’s the idea that r3’s are somehow necessary for the completion of endgame content. The thing is, that’s simply not true. I recently finished the second part of the Shang-Chi challenge by relying almost entirely on a r5 5 star Ægon. Did it take some revives and potions? Of course. But considering the options people used to have available to them when trying to clear difficult quests (think back to when variant 1 was released), there’s absolutely no reason to think that r3’s are needed to complete content, outside of maybe high-tier alliance war. At the moment, with regard to content completion, r3’s are much more of a nice bonus than they are a vital staple of any roster

Demonzfyre

Not as many that should. The excuse is that the epic mods are too hard or they "don't have time" or they don't have R3's. More Cavs could play Map 7 with epic mods than could tackle some of the content that's come out. Map 7 is easy to complete. The mods aren't that bad once you learn them. Parry Curse is the worst and most everyone does that on day one when it's the easiest.

The fact is, Cav players would rather complain about not having enough T5CC or the the right 6*'s instead of actually doing something about it.

@Real_Madrid_76_2 literally said they want to be TB without doing challenging content. That's just one example but we see it all the time. I ask in most posts when there's a complaint about not enough T5CC if they do map 7. Answer is always no.

You can't complain about something if you're not dong everything you can to get that item.

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BitterSteel

I just want to make two points. I agree with almost everything you’ve said.

Firstly, I agree you definitely don’t need Rank 3s to do epic Mods. I have two accounts in the same alliance, and my mini with 3 R3s (none of which I use in Aq) gets along fine. Plus, my main, I think I use 2 of my R3s for AQ over all 3 cycles of the map.

Secondly, remember not to generalise Cavs. There are *some* Cavs that complain exactly as you say, but then there are other Cavs who just get on with it and accept it. The ones who complain should be called out, but the ones who get on with it, a fair few on the forum right now, don’t deserve to be lumped in with the complainers purely for being cav.

rockykoston

I don't know man, mcoc content difficulty is always going up, I never saw the content difficulty plateau, at every step for me there was/is something in the contest that I cannot do.

I'm a FTP guy and I've been around since 2016 I think, did take a break in 2019 for a bit but since I came back last November progression has been really fast, so not sure what your concern is.

I had ONE 5* r5 champ last November (Blade), now I have
Sixteen 5* r5
One 6* r3
Five 6* r2

I have all five star champions that I want except Apocalypse and the new ones.

Also was able to form 5 t5cc in this time without doing Higher AQ maps. I have t2a and t5b in overflow. So, I'm sorry, what was your concern again, Progression??

Demonzfyre

The problem is that there's a mentality out there that if content costs pots and revives, it's not worth the rewards or effort.

Cavs typically don't want hard content but they want the rewards.

Demonzfyre

That's true for the 2nd part.

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Demonzfyre

Exactly. I equate it to the similarities of the progression of a F2P and someone who spends. Some F2P tend to think they should be one the same playing field as spenders in terms of progression and it's simply not true. Just like you said, it comes down to effort. Brian Grant is the epitome of what a F2P needs to do to complete at a high level. It's not realistic for most unless they an on starting a YouTube channel and living off that income.

Bottom line is that if you aren't willing to put the effort in, you're going to have a longer road ahead.

rockykoston

Damn, got him from incursion crystal.

DNA3000

Honestly, I'm not. Several things to unpack in here, and as I'm back from vacation I've been saving it up.

First, I see no radical upward trajectory for progressional content of the game - meaning the core content players use to progress higher over time. Act 6 was reduced in difficulty. Act 7 in my opinion is taking a much lower difficulty trajectory upward, although that is complicated by the fact that Act 7 difficulty is not the same as Act 6 difficulty: it is more three dimensional than the "just hit them with bigger numbers" difficulty of Act 6 that was sprinkled with a few show stopper fights. And while there's been a gradual increase in difficulty for UC and Cav monthly EQ, that seems to be consistent with the overall drift upward in strength of the average player. In other words, I suspect that statistically speaking the same number of UC and Cav players are completing that content now as in the past, which is the definition of relatively similar difficulty. Fundamentally speaking, it is not getting harder to progress in the game.

Now, it is true that top tier content is getting harder, but it is supposed to get harder. You could even argue that there was a long pause when it wasn't getting harder. The OG hard stuff *was* stuff like Act 6, and when that was reduced in difficulty - specifically to make it much easier for the average player to progress in the game - it left a vacuum of harder content AND a faster way for less strong players to reach similar levels of game progress as the strongest players. Both of these factors dilute the end game content of the game, and we were overdue for a correction. Thus, things like the Gauntlet, the Omega Rush, and the (harder parts of) Summer of Pain. These are all things that aren't shifting the difficulty of the game higher than it should be, it is correcting the lack of such content the game needed but temporarily abandoned.

When this game was much smaller, the "top" of the game was closer to the "bottom" specifically because it was smaller. It is now exponentially larger, in terms of overall range of strength. The top needs to be higher, and it is going to seem a lot higher in relative terms, because the game simply has more altitude now.

Does this drive players away? Well, technically yes. Everything we do in the game, someone doesn't like. And there are lots of people who just won't be happy unless they have an easy path to the top. There can only be a small percentage of players who are actually top tier players, but the game's top tier progression isn't necessarily gated to them. A game where 50% of the players are in the top tier is possible, but in my opinion nonsensical. We're going to lose people and keep people. The question is who do you want to keep, and who are you willing to lose.

For myself personally, and I've been saying this for years, I want a game in which there's something for everyone, not everything for someone. I want a game in which there's a range of content and experiences, and not all of them will be appealing to me or appropriate for me. But I still want those things, because I want to be surrounded by players who think similarly: that for the good of the game we're willing to let those people have something, if they are willing to let us have something, and what we both get out of that is a larger, richer, more successful game.

Who am I willing to lose? The people who think the game needs to serve their desires first, and if it doesn't serve up their desires directly they'll go find another game. I want those people to go find another game.

Parts of this game are going to be ridiculously easy, but they are there for the players who are not as good as us in the game, to give them a way to play their way into the core of the game eventually. Parts of this game are going to be insanely difficult, because they are only insanely difficult to us, but not the players who are far stronger than we are, and they need a reason to stick around as well. The vast majority of us will find ourselves in the middle, surrounded by the ridiculously easy and the insanely difficult, and sometimes we're going to wonder why so much of the game seems to be completely bonkers, and why so little seems to be appropriately targeted at us. And we have to remember we're each just one person in a game with hundreds of thousands if not millions of players. No matter how much it looks like we're typical, none of us are. There are no typical players in this game. We're all just one of a huge number of players, all of which want something different.

The more successful the game is, the more likely it will have a wide range of players, and the more necessary it will be to contain a wider range of stuff to do: game modes, game content, difficulty tiers. Kabam is not going to spend huge amounts of time and resources of stuff no one plays and no one likes. So when I look around and see a wide diversity of stuff, even if it is stuff that is not my cup of tea, I see that as a sign the game is still healthy. In fact, if I looked around and only saw stuff appropriate for me, I'd be very concerned. There's not enough mes to support a game of this size.

The game is not getting harder. It was difficult for me to become Uncollected originally: it would be trivial for me to become Uncollected today with a new account. And that's not just because I'm a better player: I believe it is easier for an average player starting today to become Cavalier than it was for me to originally become Uncollected. Not that long ago it was extremely difficult to acquire rank 3 resources, but ever since Thronebreaker was released it is vastly easier. Not just for Thronebreakers, but for Cavalier players as well. *Average* Cavalier players are earning T5CC today almost as fast as the strongest players were doing so before TB. That's enormous progress acceleration. The only thing that makes it seem worse than it is, is envy. Cavalier players have it so much easier than they used to - that WE used to when we all were Cavs - but some of them aren't looking at how much more they are getting, they are looking at how much less they are getting than the next higher tier of players.

Honestly, some of that is a good thing. A little envy can be a great motivator to push players to progress further. But when it ceases to be "I need to do more" and becomes "the game needs to give me more, because I deserve it" then I think that once again, I'm okay losing those players. I want to be surrounded by players who look at the players below them and want to help them, and look at the players above them and want to push themselves to pursue them. Not players who constantly stew about what they deserve.

Now, to be clear I'm not accusing you, the player I'm replying to, of anything specifically. I'm quoting the question, because it is a question I feel deserves an answer. How you see the game personally is not something I'm directing any of my comments towards. I'm talking about how I see the game, within the context of all the discussion that collectively happens around here.

So short answer: Kabam probably is driving players away. But they have to, in order to make a game that the widest possible audience can enjoy, and I'm fine with that.

BitterSteel

For me, this is the most important point here. I don’t give two hoots if there’s a Variant or Act 7 piece of content that I waltz through and don’t find particularly challenging, as long as I have something that stimulates me too. If the average Cav - early Thronebreaker player has that to challenge and be enjoyable for them, who am I to say everything should be hard for me? I have no right.

However, what am I playing the game for if every piece of content is aimed below me? And equally, what is a Cav player playing for if every piece of content is aimed far, far above them? Answer: there is a range, and there needs to be a range.

So content like Shang’s challenge is absolutely necessary, since a lot of players who can’t do it, look at it as if it’s an insult that they can’t do content, whereas most TB players breathe a sigh of relief that they’ve got their content to do.

Unfortunately there was a drought before gauntlet in (I think) June, and since then there’s been a lot of end game content. Which, in the last few months, perpetuates the myth that Kabam only ever does end game content/caters to the 1%, but you only have to look at the 18 month gap beforehand to know that’s not true. And in any case, SoP had a Cav friendly design, with 75% of a t5cc for 9 fights. And Shang Challenge has chapter 1 to do.

I do hope in future we get an proportional balance of end game: Cav : lower tier content, I just wanted to make the point of why we’ve had a fair few end game pieces of content in succession. Remember that we have variant 8 and act 7 coming soon.

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